Winter Ball Read Online Free PDF Page A

sweet. “I’ll get you something too,” Skipper said, delighted, and turned to fumble with the key. “Careful—don’t want to let Hazel out.”
    He pushed the door open and automatically stopped the entrance with his foot. Hazel, the fuzzy black cat that had sort of moved in when he started feeding her, snarled low in her throat and retreated. At first he’d wanted to let her be inside/outside, but the day after he let her out, he found her under the porch, meowing piteously, so very confused. He’d discovered that if he could keep her from escaping in the first place, she was usually content to lie low inside the house and sit on his lap during television time.
    The front door opened straight into the living room, and he turned and plugged his phone into the charger that he kept there and put his keys in the bowl, making sure he left enough room for Richie to come in so he could set his stuff by the couch like he usually did.
    The door shut behind him and he paused, hand over the bowl as he set his keys down. He heard the thump of Richie’s duffel bag in the corner, by the bookshelf, and was going to turn to see why when Richie plastered himself to Skipper’s back, his body throwing off heat like an overheating computer tower.
    Skip froze.
    He heard a rustle, and Richie moved restlessly before hanging his Scorpions team windbreaker up on the hook. Then Richie’s hands moved insistently at Skipper’s cuffs.
    “Rich—”
    “Skip?” Richie sounded winded, like he was having trouble talking.
    “Yeah?” Skipper couldn’t do anything but whisper.
    “You thought about last night any?”
    Richie got the windbreaker off and then reached around Skipper, rucking up his shirt and sliding his palms up and down around Skipper’s taut abdomen.
    “Mmmm….” It wasn’t an answer, but it most obviously wasn’t a no.
    “I’ve been thinking about it,” Richie whispered. Skip hadn’t flipped on the light, and Richie’s growly voice, his breath between Skip’s shoulder blades, his tight little body so hot and hard against Skip’s back—how was he supposed to say no?
    He groaned instead.
    “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Richie’s hands on Skip’s hips turned aggressive, whirling him around and shoving him against the doorframe. Richie stared at him in the dark, those eyes—damn. Big limpid pools of fucking want.
    “Richie, I….”
    “You what?” Richie demanded, but he punctuated the words by grinding his crotch up against Skip’s thigh, and oh! Oh God! He was hard!
    “I wanted….” Feebly, Skip rubbed at Richie’s chest through his shirt. He wanted to take his time , dammit. This wasn’t the car, this was his house, and it was private in here, and nobody was going to pound on the ceiling of the house and yell at them for kissing like faggots in Skipper’s living room.
    “Wanted what?” Richie asked, his lips parted just a little.
    Oh… oh hell.
    Skipper framed Richie’s face with both hands, holding him, tilting him just so, and slanting his mouth over those full lips so he could—oh God, he just wanted to taste again.
    Richie let out a charged groan of hunger, and Skipper thrust his tongue inside without thought. There was no This is my buddy! and no Oh God, I’m kissing a man!
    There was only Richie—he tasted bitter, like tobacco, and hoppy like beer, but that wasn’t what Skipper was really registering. All Skipper really registered was that he tasted like he smelled: salty and a little sweaty and a lot like soap and deodorant, because he’d obviously tried, just like Skipper had, to spiff up so they could kiss each other in Skipper’s darkened house.
    Richie had apparently spent his aggression on pinning Skipper to the door, because Skipper had the upper hand now, backing Richie into the living room proper, steering him around the coffee table, getting him to the couch. Richie sat down slowly, never breaking the kiss, his hands roaming under Skipper’s shirt in a way that made